564 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 



prises have control of political power. The men who have been 

 elected have felt in some measure that they owed their election 

 to business enterprises. A man naturally will respect the in- 

 terests of the person to whom he owes his position. 



The National Nonpartisan League is now composed, of farm 

 workers. Industrial workers are showing an intense interest in 

 it. These workers form the majority of the people of the United 

 States. The political coalition of these workers means political 

 power for them. They will send men to Washington who owe 

 their election to them. These office-holders will respond to the 

 interests of those who sent them to Washington. The result 

 will be legislation beneficial to the majority instead of to the 

 few. It cannot be otherwise. That is the broad purpose of the 

 National Nonpartisan League. 



II. WHY THE LEAGUE IS OPPOSED 



W. H. HUNTER 



THE cardinal count in the indictment against the National 

 Nonpartisan League, on which its managers and promoters are 

 seeking a verdict of "not guilty" by a jury of the public, is dis- 

 loyal leadership. 



Political leaders of the League, than whom the country has 

 produced no shrewder or more resourceful, are contending that 

 the farmer is down-trodden and oppressed, that every man's 

 hand is against him and that for his own salvation his hand 

 must be against every man. They have sought to embitter the 

 farmer against bankers, grain-dealers, elevator-operators and 

 millers and to ally the laboring men of the cities with the farmer 

 by the contention that this is a "rich man's war and a poor 

 man's fight," that while the farmers and laboring men are bear- 

 ing the brunt of the fighting, the manufacturers and business 

 men generally are piling up wealth, through munitions-making 

 and profiteering. 



It is ostensibly to protect the farmers against this kind of 

 oppression that the National Nonpartisan League has organized 

 in a half-dozen States in which farmers are in the majority, and 

 the fallacy of the contention is plain on the face of it. The 



